Atiku declares interest in 2015 Aso Rock race

Former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar has declared his intention to run in the 2015 presidential election.

His media aide, Malam Garba Shehu, said on Friday that Atiku will formally announce his intention to run for the ticket of the All Progressives Congress (APC) on Wednesday, September 24.

“This is not about me, it is about our young people. It is about Nigerians. It is their future, not the past. It is about reforming government, securing the people and reconciling the nation,” Atiku said in a statement released by Shehu.

The media aide said Atiku is of the view that 2015 “is special” and is a potential turning point in Nigeria’s history.

“We need to seize the moment, to give every Nigerian a chance to help re-define Nigeria as a place for them and their children to prosper and feel safe. He says a change is needed now, and he is ready to lead that change,” Shehu added.

The campaign organisation will be headed by Professor Babalola Borisade, former minister of education.

Borisade is a long-term associate of Atiku, having been a key member of the Peoples Democratic Movement (PDM), the platform established by the late Gen. Shehu Musa Yar’Adua.

Yar’Adua was deputy to head of state, Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo, from 1976 to 1979, and made an unsuccessful bid for presidency in 1992.

His younger brother, Umaru, was president of Nigeria from 2007 to 2010, when he died in office.

The PDM was celebrated as the brain behind Obasanjo’s ride to power in 1999, with Borisade acknowledged as the “chief strategist”.